Sliced food packaging: moving to the next level of automation

15 June 2020

The food industry is demanding ever more creative packaging formats for sliced products and this often requires innovative automated solutions to make them viable.

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Weber has offered such solutions for many years. Its most recent offering is the Weber Shuttle System (WSS) which transcends traditional solutions for sliced portion loading into thermoformed packets and could be used in multiple sub industries of which slicing may or may not be a part.

There are already many delivered examples of how the WSS can fit into various food production processes, such as sandwiches, pizzas and ready meals. An advantage of this system, which is available in the UK from Interfood Technology, is its flexibility. It can be partnered with a wide variety of additional equipment to create multiple end results from a single system. Various slicers from differing levels of HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) can be incorporated and combined via a pick-and-place system to create a multi-topping pizza – for example ham and salami. A WSS producing sandwiches or ready meals can be sped up or slowed down under third-party dosing stations to create the right layering of butter or creamed potato/vegetable, for example.